The management and administration of computer networks is extremely important to businesses today. The cost of personal computers has dropped to a level that practically every employee in a business now uses a personal computer in fulfillment of their job responsibilities, and each of these computers is typically coupled to a network for file sharing, printer sharing and the like. Such a computer network can have thousands of users, and hundreds of file servers, facsimile servers, printers, and other network-attached devices. Most businesses have found it necessary to employ one or more highly compensated individuals for the sole purpose of maintaining and administering the company's computer networks. To ease this task, providing intuitive, efficient and robust network administration tools has become a very important focus for vendors of network operating systems (NOSs). In fact, strong network administration capabilities have become such an important aspect of a NOS that NOSs are frequently purchased solely on the strength of their network administration capabilities.
It is common for a business to implement multiple network operating systems on its computer network to leverage the strengths of different network operating systems. For example, one network operating system may excel as an application server platform, while another NOS may excel as a file server platform, or in providing robust network administration features. One drawback with the use of NOSs from multiple vendors is that it requires maintaining a variety of different NOS name bases. A name base is a file, or collection of files, used by a NOS to maintain the names and other relevant attributes of network-attached entities, such as computer users, file servers, printers, and the like. The attributes associated with an entity such as a user can include, for example, the location of the user, their password, and the type of access they have to particular computer resources. Because each NOS maintains its own name base, a network administrator must maintain multiple name bases, and be familiar with the administrative utilities associated with each NOS. Maintaining multiple name bases requires duplication of efforts and resources, and it can be very difficult to synchronize changes to the name bases so that each name base reflects accurate information.
Some attempts have been made at resolving such synchronization problems. For example, programs exist which from time to time automatically propagate changes made to one name base to other name bases. Examples of such programs are Novell Corporation Inc.'s NOVELL ADMINISTRATOR FOR WINDOWS NT and NetVision Corporation's SYNCHRONICITY. Synchronization programs can reduce the need to manually update each name base, but do not eliminate the problem that until synchronization occurs, the name bases contain different definitions for the same entities. Another problem with multiple name bases is the duplication of information, and the additional storage space required, as well as the utilization of valuable processor resources and network bandwidth to propagate changes from one name base to the other name bases on the network, whether accomplished manually or automatically.
Moreover, because network administration is complex, a company typically provides one or more employees with relatively expensive training in the proper use of the network administration tools of a particular NOS. Such costs are increased when multiple NOSs are involved. Unfortunately, companies frequently lose such well-trained individuals to other companies, and must then incur the training expenses repeatedly. Many of these expenses would be minimized if administration of network entities could be consolidated into a single NOS name base.
While one partial solution would be to implement only a single NOS on a network, the reality is that businesses run multiple network operating systems to leverage the strengths of each NOS. Also, some NOSs use a separate name base for each server that defines a separate domain, so that even with one NOS, multiple name bases must be maintained. Therefore, a method and system which would allow one name base to transparently supplant other name bases on the network, such that all communications directed to other name bases are transparently redirected to a single name base would be highly desirable. Such a method and system would allow administrators to use the administration utilities of one NOS to administer all NOSs through a single name base. Such a method and system would eliminate duplication of data, save storage space, and eliminate processing cycles used to synchronize a variety of name bases. Moreover, the need to train individuals in multiple network administration utilities would be eliminated. Another advantage is that a NOS with superior network administration utilities and features, such as a robust directory service, could be used to administer NOSs that lack such features.
Another NOS administration difficulty arises in the workgroup context. A workgroup is a group of peer-to-peer computers. No computer acts solely as a server, and each computer can act as either a client or a server to any other computer in the workgroup. Computers in a work group do not use a single consolidated name base. Instead, each workstation maintains its own name base, in which the network-attached entities associated with that particular workstation are maintained. For example, a respective user identifier and its associated attributes, such as a password, will exist in the name base of each workstation to allow a user to logon to that workstation. If another NOS exists on the network which has more intuitive and robust administration capabilities, it would be desirable to transparently supplant each individual name base with a consolidated name base associated with the more robust NOS. This would eliminate the need to maintain multiple name bases. Moreover, individual name bases render backup of the name base data difficult as each name base must be individually backed up from the respective workstation. Supplanting individual name bases with a consolidated centralized name base would greatly simplify such a backup process. Preferably, consolidation of the individual name bases would be accomplished in such a manner that it is transparent to the user and the processes running on each workstation, to eliminate the need to modify and recompile existing computer processes.